What makes a terrorist?

[Mango]

I believe the gov't's definition doesn't require harm to individual's. It can be to civilian population or gov't.

If someone taxed my tea to oblivion, I might be inclined to dress up in disguise and dump tea all over the place too.

Would that make me a terrorist?

 

[Mango]

Interesting observation. I think the same could be said for many people joining the US military forces.

Terrorists also seem to have a total disregard for their actions and how it affects civilians. I think the word I am looking for is morally disengaged?

I do not think that is the case for most US military personnel in my opinion. I honestly believe their main self fulfilling objective in joining is the group dynamic of protecting and serving their country.

 

[Andy A]

This thread is confusing and totally beyond my comprehension and I am not exactly uneducated. It seems to me half of the intelligent posters don't know what they are talking about and the other half of the intelligent poster's points get lost in their own rhetoric.

 

[rapunzel]

Terrorists also seem to have a total disregard for their actions and how it affects civilians. I think the word I am looking for is morally disengaged?

I do not think that is the case for most US military personnel in my opinion. I honestly believe their main self fulfilling objective in joining is the group dynamic of protecting and serving their country.

It seems to me as though you've embraced the brand, Mango, and not the definition our government provided us. Morally disengaged is the criteria? Well...

Sometimes, the actions and reactions of the Sons of Liberty to the Stamp Act took a violent turn as recorded in a local New York City merchant's diary in April, 1765. Violence broke out with the arrival of a shipment of stamped paper to the Royal Governor's residence. Cadwallder Colden, the acting Royal Governor of the New York colony and scholarly correspondent of Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Samuel Johnson, was extremely frightened of the patriotic group and so locked himself up securely inside Fort George immediately after he received the stamped paper from British officials. A few hours after receiving the official papers, a raucous mob captured the governor's gilded and spectacular coach and reduced it to a pile of ashes. From here the mob (consisting largely of extremist elements of the New York Sons of Liberty) raced uptown to the home of Fort George's commander, smashing numerous windows and breaking into the wine cellar to sustain their "patriotism" before descending on the rest of the house in a convulsion of vandalism. Tarring and feathering Loyalists ? those individuals who sympathized and were supportive of the British Crown, royal tax collectors, and other officials ? was a common practice carried out by the more radical elements of the organizations. (from EarlyAmerica.com)

As the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's patriot.

Hearing some of the comments above reminds me of sitting in a History of the Middle East class when I was about 20 and voicing some of the same sentiments about freedom and democracy being contagious. We had a group of Lebanese army officers who were training at Fort Benning's School of the Americas who came to speak to the class, and afterwards asked if they could attend each session. Those men changed my thinking about the Middle East in so many ways. The whole "given the choice, everyone will choose capitalism, democracy, and freedom (as we define it)" argument is so ethnocentric and fails to factor in the culture of the people of the Middle East. I do believe that all human beings want the same thing on the most basic level, however I'm not sure I think that they will all see that emulating the culture of the West is the only path to happiness. Have we, as free, capitalist, little 'd' democrats created a perfect society? Yes, some aspects of their culture are medieval, but it's their culture. Our culture had it's own medieval period and was able to evolve organically.

I hope that this post will not be interpreted as pro-terrorist. The point I was trying to make was that 1) our government's definition of terrorism illegalizes the very sort of actions that created it, and 2) perhaps we should acknowledge that when we say "terrorist" we are using a code word for Islamic fundamentalist jihadists of the late 20th/early 21st century and the other semi-successful dissidents of the world they inspired.

 

[SON]

On that Technology vs. Luddite Thang....

The advancement of modern technology allows us to kill many more people
at one time. And it also allows more people to drive or fly to the beach in one day from 500 to whatever miles away.

Has nothing to do with the fact that people still want to kill each other

Advancing technology does not mean advancing consciousness

 

[Andy A]

Terrorists also seem to have a total disregard for their actions and how it affects civilians. I think the word I am looking for is morally disengaged?

I do not think that is the case for most US military personnel in my opinion. I honestly believe their main self fulfilling objective in joining is the group dynamic of protecting and serving their country.

Well said, Mango, and right on target.

 

[SON]

Question: If you could vote via the internet today and the will of the people
would be carried out.......

How many of you would be willing to Kill or support the killing of every Man Woman and Child if necessary at the least possible cost to American life
possible to be rid of "terrorists" also known as "the enemy" which I prefer.
Insert the word enemy in place of Terrorist and see if it changes your perspective.

That is what the enemy is prepared to do to every Man Woman and Child in our Country with no more regard than if we were a bunch of cockroaches.

 

[Ocean breeze]

Question: If you could vote via the internet today and the will of the people
would be carried out.......

How many of you would be willing to Kill or support the killing of every Man Woman and Child if necessary at the least possible cost to American life
possible to be rid of "terrorists" also known as "the enemy" which I prefer.
Insert the word enemy in place of Terrorist and see if it changes your perspective.

That is what the enemy is prepared to do to every Man Woman and Child in our Country with no more regard than if we were a bunch of cockroaches.

If we act like them, we are no better. I vote No.

 

[SON]

If we act like them, we are no better. I vote No.

A point I have made before myself.

Is this about who is better or who survives?

I want my Loved ones, friends, etc. to survive even if they are not better
than someone else.

And did Meher Baba say when this new mode will happen?
Right now the enemy is hampering my interplay, the Love is not being returned

Respectfully,
SON

 

[Bob]

Terrorists also seem to have a total disregard for their actions and how it affects civilians. I think the word I am looking for is morally disengaged?

I do not think that is the case for most US military personnel in my opinion. I honestly believe their main self fulfilling objective in joining is the group dynamic of protecting and serving their country.

Not to be argumentative Mango, but active duty personnel would like to be anywhere but Iraq, and most are only in it for the stability/paycheck. Most terrorists are absolutely convinced they are taking the high moral ground and have God on their side. It's hard to see the flip side of a group of idiots so convinced in their rectitude. They'll justify killing anyone to win for their side. We did the same in WW2 when we firebombed all the major German cities and incinerated hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. We justified it for victory over Hitler. My question is who do we define as terrorists, and who are acceptable combatants in Iraq. Those who play by the Geneva Convention??? Were the terrorists in Iraq before we killed Hussein, or have they all moved in? What do you label a man shooting at U.S. troops in Iraq? Insurgent, terrorist, combatant, angry boy, patriot? What? Should not the big question be, what the hell are we doing over there? Who is sitting in whose neighborhood?